Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No.

Heroes for the past and present: a century of

remembering Amundsen and Scott
Peder Roberts
MISHA, 5 allée du Général Rouvillois, 67000 Strasbourg, France

In 1911–1912 Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott covertly shift his gaze south. The new plans were an-
led rival parties in a race to the geographic South Pole. nounced to the crew once they were out to sea, and the
While both parties reached the Pole – Amundsen first – news was relayed to Scott in a perfunctory telegram.
Scott’s men died on the return journey. Amundsen Thereafter Scott and Amundsen would be in direct compe-
became a Norwegian icon through his record-setting tition. Once their journeys to the Pole commenced the
travels; Scott became a symbol of courage and devotion differences in travel technique became clear. Scott’s men
to science. The memory of each was invoked at various used man-hauling complemented by ponies and dogs,
points during the twentieth century in the context of where Amundsen’s relied exclusively upon dogs and ski.
contemporary Antarctic events. Scott’s status as a sci- Due largely to their superior methods of travel, the Nor-
entific figure was central to the Scott Polar Research wegians reached the Pole first and returned in safety and
Institute, while Amundsen’s lack of scientific legacy even some comfort, announcing their triumph to the world
became a way for British polar explorers to differentiate at Hobart in March 1912. Scott’s five-man party reached
themselves from Norwegian contemporaries during the their goal five weeks after Amundsen, but all died during
interwar years. After 1945 Scott and Amundsen were the return journey. The remains of the last three men were
again invoked as exemplars of national polar achieve- found in their tent the next summer, the frozen bodies
ment, even as the rise of large-scale science on the accompanied by diaries, photographs and geological speci-
continent overshadowed past British and Norwegian mens (Figure 1).
achievements. In the present Amundsen and Scott re- My aim is not to retell the story of the race (which others
main wedded to particular values, focused respectively have done in painstaking detail), but to examine how Scott
on national achievement and sacrifice in the name of and Amundsen’s memories became resources for subse-
science, while their race has become secondary. quent generations appropriated and shaped by successive
generations, to the point where the race itself has almost
Few episodes in the history of exploration have captured completely ceased to be a useful resource in the present.
public interest like the race to the geographical South Pole Such an approach draws on Max Jones’s marvelous study
between in 1911 and 1912. The leaders of these expeditions of Scott’s legacy in Edwardian England and beyond.1 This
– one British, one Norwegian – have become synonymous is also a chance to illuminate some key themes in the
with the expeditions themselves. Robert Falcon Scott history of twentieth century exploration. As Michael
(1868–1912), an officer in Britain’s Royal Navy, had first Robinson has shown in the context of nineteenth- and
journeyed to the Antarctic in 1901. In the course of a larger early twentieth-century American Arctic exploration,
expedition Scott led a three-man expedition that set a new there was no linear evolution from sport and adventure
‘farthest south’ and established his polar reputation. Roald to sober science.2 This is equally true for the Antarctic as
Amundsen (1872–1928), a sailor and onetime medical the Arctic (and the Himalayas, for that matter). By exam-
student, had served as a mate on the polyglot Belgica ining how Scott and Amundsen were remembered through
expedition, which became the first to overwinter beneath the past century, we can say as much about those doing the
the Antarctic Circle when their vessel was trapped by sea remembering as the explorers themselves.
ice in 1898. He subsequently achieved the first traverse of
the North-West Passage (1903–1906), completing a quest The race and its immediate aftermath
many Britons had sought – including Sir John Franklin, By the turn of the twentieth century the earth’s geograph-
whose own lost 1845–1848 expedition had been an inspi- ical poles were earnestly sought fillips. This had not always
ration to the young Amundsen. been the case. For much of the nineteenth century Eur-
When Scott headed south in 1910 Amundsen was plan- opeans interrogated the polar regions for more pragmatic
ning an expedition to the Arctic basin, following in the reasons, from imperially-minded science and exploration
metaphorical footsteps of the great Norwegian explorer (such as Sir Edward Sabine’s ‘Magnetic Crusade’ and the
and oceanographer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930). But the quest for the North-West Passage) to the first Internation-
recent conquest of the North Pole, claimed by both Robert al Polar Year in 1882–1883, which involved an ambitious
E. Peary and Amundsen’s old Belgica colleague Frederick
A. Cook – both Americans – had convinced Amundsen to 1
Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003).
2
Corresponding author: Roberts, P. ([email protected]) Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture
Available online 30 August 2011 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

www.sciencedirect.com 0160-9327/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2011.08.002
 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4 143

the Norwegian Geographical Society attended by the Royal

Family, members of parliament, and other notables, Nan-
sen declared that Amundsen had exemplified the spirit of
his nation: his conquest of the Pole marked a new level of
excellence in a field that Norwegians possessed particular
affinity for, thanks to their culture and geography. While
noting that Amundsen’s journey could be viewed as a
‘sporting feat’, Nansen felt its value was anything but
trivial: ‘let us have many such sporting feats’!5 His seal
of approval thus helped legitimize Amundsen’s journey as
a serious and civilized act, locating it within a narrative of
worthy achievement even without the authority of science,
which was such a strong part of Nansen’s approach to
exploration. As Robert Marc Friedman’s article in this
volume demonstrates, Nansen’s public praise masked pri-
Figure 1. Robert Falcon Scott in the Winter Quarters, 1910–1913 expedition. vate disappointment that Amundsen had dashed for the
Reproduced with permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of South Pole instead of completing the original plan for an
Cambridge.
Arctic basin expedition, which would have returned signif-
icant oceanographic results.
program of coordinated observations in the earth and Praise for Amundsen in Britain was comparatively
atmospheric sciences. Many of these expeditions provided mild. One newspaper editor blamed domestic events6 –
riveting narratives, which served to establish polar explo- and this was indeed a turbulent time of strikes and suf-
ration in the public imagination and polar expeditions as fragettes – but even after the political turmoil settled
media events,3 but it was not until later in the century that down, Amundsen failed to capture the imagination. He
the Poles themselves joined the list of totemic goals whose lacked Scott and Nansen’s gift for communicating an ex-
pursuit illustrated the march of civilization in general, and citing narrative. While Nansen was happy to blow Amund-
the strength of the nation – and the individual – in partic- sen’s trumpet, the explorer’s own efficiently anodyne
ular. Devoid of practical significance, the Poles were classic accounts captured what historian Narve Fulsås has iden-
sporting goals, their rise to prominence from the end of the tified as the defining feature of Amundsen’s career: ‘records
nineteenth century contemporaneous with the birth of that without heroism’.7 The publisher William Heinemann
other celebration of romantic nationalism in sport: the complained to Nansen that ‘human interest seems to be
modern Olympic Games. missing entirely in the story of this expedition, which
For Norwegians, bound to Sweden in an unpopular appears to have been the most capably managed and
union from 1814 to 1905, polar explorers became particu- ridiculously easy performance ever known, considering
larly powerful national heroes at a time when Norway what others have suffered’.8
lacked political independence. None won greater renown There was also disquiet in Britain over Amundsen’s
than Nansen.4 After leading the first crossing of Greenland personal conduct. The decision to switch suddenly from
in 1888, he conceived and executed a daring, though ulti- the Arctic to the Antarctic had drawn strong criticism for
mately unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole by breaching sporting etiquette (an action that raised eye-
allowing his specially-designed vessel Fram to be frozen brows in Norway too), even if Scott’s British rivals (includ-
into the Arctic ice and carried north by currents. Nansen’s ing Sir Ernest Shackleton) were privately cheering for
Greenland expedition concurrently established skiing as a Amundsen.9 The Norwegian minister in London felt that
particularly effective and a particularly Nordic mode of public opinion would have been even more inflamed had
polar travel, and the drift of the Fram symbolized ingenui- the widely-respected Nansen not intervened.10 Others
ty as well as boldness. The grueling man-hauling that were uneasy about Amundsen’s treatment of his dogs,
featured in British Arctic exploration in the second half the great majority of which were killed during the expedi-
of the nineteenth century was also specifically national, the tion and fed to the remaining pack. When Amundsen
suffering it entailed a measure of character. The differing lectured at the RGS in November 1912, the Society’s
techniques employed by Scott and Amundsen in the Ant- President – the Conservative statesman Lord Curzon
arctic thus implicitly located them within different nation- (1859–1925) – expressed admiration for Amundsen’s
al cultures of exploration – and it did not hurt that work while singling out ‘those wonderful good-tempered,
Amundsen had borrowed Nansen’s iconic Fram for the fascinating dogs, the true friends of man, without whom
journey. 5
‘Geografisk selskap. Nansens foredrag om Roald Amundsen,’ Tidens Tegn (Oslo),
When news of Amundsen’s success reached Norway, 14 March 1912.
reaction was predictably joyous. At a special meeting of 6
Robert N. Donald (editor, Daily Chronicle) to Nansen, 11 March 1912. National
Library of Norway (NB) MS fol. 1924: 5,3 1912.
7
Narve Fulsås, ‘En æressag for vor nation,’ in Einar-Arne Drivenes and Harald Dag
3
On the media and polar exploration in this period, the essential reference is Beau Jølle, eds, Norsk polarhistorie 1: ekspedisjonene (Oslo: Gyldendal, 2004), p. 209.
8
Riffenburgh, The Myth of the Explorer: The Press, Sensationalism, and Geographic Heinemann to Nansen, 12 March 1912. NB MS fol. 1924: 5,3: ‘1912 Amundsen’s
Discovery (London: Belhaven, 1993). hjemkomst fra Sydpolen.’
4 9
On Nansen, see particularly Roland Huntford, Nansen: The Explorer as Hero Tor Bomann-Larsen, Roald Amundsen: en biografi (Oslo: Cappellen, 2003), p. 143.
10
(London: Duckworth, 1997). The forthcoming biography by Harald Dag Jølle promises Benjamin Vogt to Utenriksdepartementet (Foreign Ministry), 26 April 1911. NB
to set a new benchmark. MS. fol. 1924: 5,3 1919, packet 1911.

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144 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4

Captain Amundsen would never have got to the Pole’.11 Amundsen’s later ventures were fundamentally similar
Curzon, who was also a paternalistically sentimental ad- to his earlier expeditions in that the means were secondary
vocate for the protection of British imperial fauna, clearly to the end. New techniques invoked logistical proficiency
suggested that the dogs done the work of men (in implicit rather than commitment to higher scientific ideals, the
contrast with Scott’s man-hauling) before being cold-heart- characteristic that increasingly came to define Scott’s leg-
edly butchered for food and fuel. If his efficiency had been acy. The memorial fund set up in Amundsen’s honor spon-
overly reminiscent of professionalism, Amundsen’s person- sored the causes its trustees thought ‘closest to his heart’16:
al conduct could be linked to that gravest accusation in the working up scientific results from polar expeditions, and
world of pre-professional sport: cheating. also furthering Norwegian hunting industries, an activity
News of Scott’s death reached the world in February with particular resonance during a time when radical
1913. Messages of condolence deluged the British Foreign nationalists pressed Norwegian claims to sovereignty over
Office from everywhere between the Municipal Council of Danish-controlled East Greenland.17 The historian Anne
Algiers and the government of Haiti (including Norway). Eriksen has pointed out that advertisements imploring
Max Jones’s wonderful study reveals that Scott and his Norwegians to donate to the fund equated the accumula-
fallen comrades were promptly memorialized as ‘martyrs tion of financial resources for polar exploration to the
of science’ as well as icons of spiritual sacrifice.12 In a expansion of ‘the nation’s symbolic capital’.18 Amundsen
poignant letter to his wife, Scott implored her to make was concerned more with himself than his nation; his
their young son ‘interested in natural history, if you can; it biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen points out that Amundsen
is better than games’.13 (The message had the desired threatened to take out American citizenship at one point.19
effect: Peter Scott, founding chairman of the World Wildlife But during his lifetime, Amundsen’s polar feats were
Fund, was eventually knighted for services to conserva- lauded as deeds that simultaneously exemplified and
tion.) Thirty-five pounds of geological specimens, collected awakened the Norwegian spirit. There were few attempts
as the men were struggling for survival and carried even as to cast him as a paragon of scientific virtue, even though
they died, became powerful symbols of Scott’s commitment Nansen had ensured science and polar research were
to higher ideals beyond racing to the Pole. The Natural closely linked in early twentieth century Norway.20
History Museum in London promptly hosted an exhibition If Amundsen’s fame derived from records rather than
of specimens from the expedition, which acquired the research, the same could not be said for Scott. The memo-
status of ‘relics’.14 A memorial fund established in honor rial fund established after his final expedition still had a
of Scott’s lost men was over-subscribed, creating that healthy balance in 1919 when Frank Debenham (1883–
rarest of problems in the history of exploration – a surfeit 1965), an Australian geologist who had served as a survey-
of money. Even during the time after Amundsen’s return or on Scott’s last expedition, argued that a center for polar
when Scott’s fate remained unknown, headlines in Norway exploration based at Cambridge University would provide
(as in Britain) noted that Scott’s wider scientific goals the perfect memorial. ‘If Scott had survived the fateful
meant he had not traveled in vain. The second man to journey’, Debenham told the RGS, ‘his first care would have
the Pole would become a defining icon for the post-Pole been the adequate publication of the scientific results for
world. which so many risks had been run’.21 This was not an
implausible claim. The expedition had included a much
The scientist and the traveler stronger scientific component than Amundsen’s Pole-fo-
Amundsen’s thirst for polar records remained unquenched. cused effort (even though its prospectus clearly prioritized
Though he finally began the delayed Arctic basin expedi- the Pole), and Scott’s own interest in science was genuine.
tion in 1918, Amundsen left the expedition before its Under Debenham’s leadership the Scott Polar Research
conclusion to attempt a transpolar flight from Alaska to Institute (known simply as ‘SPRI’, rhyming with ‘spry’)
Svalbard, the first in a series of aerial adventures that became both an archive of polar information and a social
would define the final stage of his career.15 After two center for explorers. A culture of exploration emerged
unsuccessful attempts to cross the Arctic with fixed-wing around Debenham and his fellow Antarctic veterans Ray-
aircraft, Amundsen placed himself at the head of a tri- mond Priestley (1886–1974) and James Wordie (1889–
national team using the Italian-built airship Norge, which 1962), identifying Scott’s devotion to science as the key
flew from Svalbard to Alaska via the North Pole on May element in his legacy. Crucially, this did not mean being
11–14, 1926. Amundsen died in June 1928 while attempt-
ing to rescue Nobile’s new expedition (he went solo after 16
A copy of the Fund’s statutes are held at the State Archives of Norway in Tromsø
(SATø) Norwegian Polar Institute collection (NP) A 013 3/6 box 194, folder 7.
falling out with Amundsen), which had gone missing in the 17
On the links between interwar polar exploration and Norwegian nationalism, see
Arctic. Wreckage from Amundsen’s Latham 47 aircraft Bomann-Larsen, Roald Amundsen especially p. 474; Drivenes, ‘Ishavsimperalisme;’
washed ashore in northern Norway that autumn, but his Roberts, The European Antarctic: Science and Strategy in Scandinavia and the British
Empire (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Chapter 3.
body was never found. 18
Eriksen, ‘Polarheltene – minner og monumenter,’ in Norsk polarhistorie 1, p. 352.
19
Bomann-Larsen, Roald Amundsen, p. 230.
11 20
Curzon in ‘The Norwegian South Polar Expedition: Discussion,’ Geographical On the associations between science and polar exploration in early twentieth
Journal vol. 41 (1) (1913), p. 16. Norway, see Robert Marc Friedman, ‘Civilization and National Honour: the Rise of
12
Jones, Last Great Quest, Chapter 5. Norwegian Geophysical and Cosmic Science,’ in John Peter Collett, ed., Making Sense of
13
Scott ed. Jones, Journals: Captain Scott’s Last Expedition (Oxford: Oxford Space: the History of Norwegian Space Activities, Oslo/Stockholm/Copenhagen/Bonn:
University Press, 2006), p. 419. Scandinavian University Press, 1995, pp. 3–39; and Nansenismen, in Drivenes and Jølle,
14
‘Captain Scott’s Story,’ The Times (London), 20 November 1913. eds, Norsk polarhistorie 2: vitenskapene (Oslo: Gyldendal, 2004), pp. 107–173.
15 21
On Amundsen’s polar flying career, see for instance Roald Berg, ‘Amundsen og Debenham, ‘The Future of Polar Exploration,’ Geographical Journal vol. 57 (3)
hans aeronauter,’ in Norsk polarhistorie 1, pp. 227–291. (1921), p. 200.

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 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4 145

parties’, wrote Priestley and his fellow geologist Cecil

Tilley in a 1928 paper.

On the one hand we see debilitated men . . . destined

in the event to leave their bodies as a mute witness at
the same time to the greatness of their spirit and the
inadequacy of the means they had employed. In a
cairn within a few miles of their last resting place
their comrades later found a priceless bag of speci-
mens, collected, many of them, after the direness of
the emergency must have been realized. By their side
lay the notebooks containing the detailed notes, lack-
ing which the specimens would have been deprived of
half their value. On the other hand, a few hundred
miles away and two months earlier, another party,
secure in the attainment of their dominant ideal, safe
beyond any reasonable doubt from failure, made a
Figure 2. Peter Scott (center) and Lady Scott at the opening of the new SPRI hurried traverse of a region more interesting because
building, November 1934. less well known, returning to their base unwearied
Reproduced with permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of and ahead of scheduled time, bearing with them a few
Cambridge.
fragments of rock from one or two only of the many
rock exposures on whose surfaces their eyes had been
wedded to Scott’s methods of travel. Priestley’s undergrad- the first to rest.24
uate lectures studied earlier ventures with an eye to their
These views were echoed in the work of J. Gordon
shortcomings, and if his lecture notes are anything to go by,
Hayes, a rural vicar who published two major histories
the examination question inviting undergraduates to com-
of Antarctic exploration around this time. Hayes argued in
pare and contrast Scott and Amundsen’s methods of explo-
1928 that Scott’s admirable commitment to science was let
ration was intended to produce answers more admiring of
down by poor planning and inferior travel technique,25
the latter22 (Figure 2)
parroting the views (if not the tone) of the Cambridge
But within the Cambridge milieu Amundsen’s name
group, from whom he learned much of his polar knowledge.
increasingly became associated with the meaningless pur-
He agreed that Amundsen’s work represented a missed
suit of records, technique without worthy purpose, because
opportunity while arguing (like Debenham) that the explo-
his strengths as a traveler were not matched by Scott’s
ration of the Antarctic was worthy of state and university
scientific proclivities. Amundsen’s aerial feats, which in-
funding, an act of civilization that Britain could not be seen
cluded a negligible scientific component, only heightened
to leave to other nations. Amundsen’s reputation among
these feelings – as did the bitter words in his 1927 autobi-
scientists with polar interests declined further as time
ography, in which Amundsen recalled Curzon requesting
passed, Hayes told a colleague in 1931.26 Their annoyance
‘three cheers for the dogs’ during his reception in London.
perhaps had less to do with Amundsen than the fact
The RGS was furious and demanded an apology (which
opportunities for land-based Antarctic exploration were
they did not receive), and eventually withdrew Amund-
very hard to come by. Aviators such as Lincoln Ellsworth
sen’s honorary membership. Debenham’s conflicted re-
(who had been to the North Pole with Amundsen) and
sponse was perhaps indicative of feeling around
Hubert Wilkins hogged the headlines. And tensions be-
Cambridge: he could not understand the source of Amund-
tween Britons and Norwegians were again rising in the
sen’s bitterness, and his ‘unsportsmanlike’ accusations,
Antarctic, where disputes over control of the booming
even as he admitted that the feat of reaching the South
whaling industry prompted British claims that unscientific
Pole demanded respect.23
Norwegians were concerned only with making a quick
Even though Amundsen’s untimely death the following
buck.
year helped refocus attention on his feats of exploration,
many felt he had wasted a magnificent opportunity by
National rivalry revived
prioritizing the Pole to the exclusion of all other goals.
The Scott-Amundsen rivalry returned to prominence in
At the institute that bore Scott’s name, his spirit was
October 1929. A Norwegian expedition was heading south
invoked to define the values of exploration even if Amund-
under Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen (1890–1965), probably the
sen was acknowledged as a master of its methods. ‘There is
most famous active Norwegian explorer thanks to his recent
no more important object lesson to the geological party of
exploits with Amundsen. Financed by the whaling magnate
the future than that afforded by the contrast between the
Lars Christensen (1884–1965), this venture combined
geological harvest of the Scott and the Amundsen southern
searching for new whaling fields with the charting new
22 24
These lecture notes are held in the archives of the Scott Polar Research Institute Priestley and Tilley, ‘Geological Problems of Antarctica,’ in W.L.G. Joerg, ed.,
(SPRI) MS 1097/6 and MS 1097/7. This particular question was in 1097/7, to be Problems of Polar Research: A Series of Papers by Thirty-One Authors, American
answered by students at the end of Lent Term. I have examined this culture in greater Geographical Society Special Publication 7 (New York: American Geographical Soci-
detail in Chapter 4 of The European Antarctic. ety, 1928), p. 321.
23 25
Debenham to Hinks, 21 and 23 November 1927. Royal Geographical Society Hayes, Antarctica: A Treatise on the Southern Continent (London: Richards, 1928).
26
Archives, RGS/CB9/54. Hayes to Hugh Robert Mill, 4 February 1931. SPRI MS 100/44/39.

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146 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4

territory and, if possible, taking possession of it for Norway.

This was one of a series of expeditions that simultaneously
boosted Christensen’s commercial position and his civic
status, through patronage of a national tradition. At the
same time, the Australian Antarctic veteran Sir Douglas
Mawson (1872–1958) was leading the awkwardly named
British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expe-
dition (BANZARE), conceived to shore up British title to
Antarctic territory south of Australia, but sold to the public
as an act of scientific exploration. Chaos ensued when a set of
incendiary quotes attributed to Mawson appeared in the
South African and British media. Mawson slammed his
Norwegian rivals as being unconcerned with science, hoping
merely to conquer the most land possible and efficiently but
irresponsibly exploit the Antarctic whale stocks. Riiser-
Larsen was willfully ignorant of science and no better than
Amundsen, an inferior historical figure because his urge to
Figure 3. Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and Sir Douglas Mawson met face-to-face in the
win the Pole by any means led him to ignore codes of civilized Antarctic during 1930, where their rivalry did not prevent smiles for the camera.
behavior. Like his erstwhile colleague, Riiser-Larsen stood Reproduced with permission of the Mawson Centre, South Australian Museum.
accused of deceptive conduct that eroded the legitimacy of
his expedition.
The remarks caused fury in Norway. The British For-
eign Office quickly told Mawson that Norwegian represen-
tatives were upset about his references to the late
Amundsen, and – tellingly – that their official response
was to insist their expedition had proper scientific motives.
The slights against Amundsen’s honor were ‘unjust and
peevish’, according to the Norwegian-British shipping
magnate Sir Karl Knudsen.27 The geologist Adolf Hoel
(1879–1964), a prominent advocate of Norwegian imperi-
alism in the polar regions, felt comments in the British
media wishing misfortune upon Riiser-Larsen’s expedition
could hardly be considered as sporting.28 But the most
damaging aspect of Mawson’s accusation was that it locat-
ed Norwegians on the side of ephemeral travel and Britons
on the more worthy side of science. Many in Norway viewed
the criticism as part of a wider campaign to retain British Figure 4. The crew of Mawson’s BANZARE expedition, 1929–1931.
control of Antarctic whaling, an industry dominated by Reproduced with permission of the Mawson Centre, South Australian Museum.
Norwegian companies, with science a source of political
authority rather than an objective source of data (Figure 3). thought a useful way to associate his present work with
Christensen’s expeditions – of which the current ven- Scott29 (particularly as the expedition relied heavily on
ture was the fourth – brought science and whaling together donations from the public) (Figure 4).
in a manner that validated Norway’s commercial rights in The BANZARE made only brief coastal landfalls and
the Antarctic, providing emblems of civilized national while SPRI sent several small expeditions to the Arctic
achievement. The fact he sought the advice of Nansen, during the interwar years, Debenham’s hopes for a trans-
not Amundsen, when planning this program of exploration Antarctic crossing went unrealized. This quest was justi-
spoke to his desire for a similarly weighty legacy. For fied primarily by its novelty and the technical skill of the
Mawson, comparing the Norvegia expedition to Amund- current generation of British polar travelers. Like Hayes,
sen’s South Pole journey was a way to decouple it from the Debenham felt that exploration of the polar wastes was
science-heavy Nansenist tradition and instead imply baser inherently important, their blank spaces an affront to
motives, using a particular vision of the past in the service civilization that Britain had a moral duty to eradicate.
of his present aims. Invoking the Scott-Amundsen rivalry But his conviction gained little traction in the midst of the
also worked to Mawson’s advantage by granting his expe- Great Depression. The sole major British expedition to the
dition a notable pedigree at a time when funding for Antarctic continent during the interwar years, the British
continental Antarctic exploration was scarce. Just as Graham Land Expedition (BGLE, 1934–1937), won a gov-
Amundsen had loaned the famous Fram in 1910, the ernment grant premised on its relevance to defending
BANZARE used Scott’s first ship Discovery, which Mawson British sovereignty in the Falklands Islands Dependen-
cies, but still operated on such a tight budget that the
27
‘Sir Karl Knudsen’s Reply,’ Norwegian Journal of Commerce and Shipping (week-
ly foreign edition), 17 October 1929.
28 29
‘Ingen britte har bedt konsul Christensen om samarbeide,’ Morgenbladet (Oslo), Mawson to Richard Casey, 5 July 1928. Mawson Centre, South Australian
11 October 1929. Museum (MC) 33 BZE.

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 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4 147

scientific staff doubled as sailors on the journey south in glorify fruitless sacrifice, and wondered if Nelson’s Column
order to save on hiring able seamen – a nautical equivalent would have been twice as high if the Admiral had lost the
of man-hauling, perhaps. battle (in addition to his life) at Trafalgar, and only half as
Nansen had insistently located Amundsen within a big if he had survived.34 The correspondent viewed this
Norwegian narrative; now Wordie ensured the BGLE celebration of failure as one side of a coin: although the film
was viewed as ‘a worthy successor to [the expeditions] of was discreet about Amundsen – in the vain hope of pre-
Scott, Shackleton and Mawson. . . working at shorter range serving its appeal to the Nordic market, he thought –
and more exhaustively, and concentrating on certain defi- reaction in Britain seemed to reinforce the morally loaded
nite problems’.30 Yet expedition ornithologist Brian distinction between worthy, self-sacrificial scientific
Roberts noted that its leader – the surveyor John Rymill explorers and record-chasing travelers. Old debates about
– actually admired Amundsen above any British explorer, Amundsen’s conduct promptly returned to Dagbladet’s
an opinion manifested also through Rymill’s lack of inter- letters pages, rehashing allegations of deception, secrecy,
est in scientific work that got in the way of surveying.31 and British concepts of fair play, eventually leading the
Hoel asked championed Norwegian imperialism in the head of the new Norwegian Polar Institute – the geophys-
polar regions, asked the Amundsen memorial fund to icist Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (1888–1957) – to forcefully
further Norway’s ‘mission as a polar nation’ by funding rebut accusations that Amundsen had lied to the RGS
the publication of his Norwegian Polar Society’s year- nearly forty years earlier.
book.32 But Amundsen had not shared Hoel’s conviction The controversy rumbled on as preparations for the
that the polar regions were spaces for imperialism, let coming Norwegian-British-Swedish expedition filled news
alone that science was an integral component of that columns. The new expedition was under the overall com-
project. So as the 1930s drew to a close, we can perhaps mand of Sverdrup and would be led in the field by the
speak of ‘official’ polar cultures on both sides of the North Norwegian John Giæver (1903–1970), a veteran of the
Sea, each using Scott and Amundsen as emblems of certain highly nationalist interwar polar milieu. Giæver was in-
values – even if the practices and worldviews of individuals vited to watch Scott of the Antarctic by the RGS while in
in those countries were rather more fluid. London, and interpreted the film as ‘in many ways an
attack on Roald Amundsen’.35 Giæver was particularly
Rivals in a cooperative world incensed that the film ignored claims that Amundsen
The Second World War brought Norway closer than ever to had left Scott a letter at the Pole, informing him a depot
Britain. After the German invasion of Norway on April 9, some kilometers from the Pole would be at the British
1940, the Norwegian Royal Family and many leading party’s disposal, and that Amundsen had offered Scott half
officers fled to Britain, including Riiser-Larsen, who even- his dogs when Scott’s Eastern Party happened upon the
tually led the exiled Norwegian Air Force. When hostilities Norwegian base in early 1911. Their omission, he felt, was
ended in 1945 Britain was again defending its Antarctic symptomatic of an anti-Amundsen (and hence anti-Norwe-
territorial claims, but this time the antagonists were gian) agenda. The problem was that Giæver could not
Argentina and Chile rather than Norway. Discussions recall any details beyond the fact he had once heard the
were already underway that would eventually lead to claims made. He let the matter rest when Helmer Hanssen,
the first explicitly international Antarctic expedition, in a survivor of the original Pole trek, could not provide
which Norway and Britain would be partners (along with confirmation – but not before getting into an argument
Sweden). The new venture would mark a turn away from with RGS Director and Secretary Larry Kirwan (1907–
association between Norwegian nationalism and polar 1999), who also served as the head of the British compo-
exploration, which had been heavily discredited by Hoel’s nent of the international expedition.36
high-profile collaboration with the German occupiers. But Fortunately the dispute between Kirwan and Giæver
even the advent of this new level of cooperation did not soon blew over. National rivalries were notably muted in
push the element of rivalry between Amundsen and Scott public descriptions of the new expedition, which disavowed
into the safely sealed past. all talk of rivalry (either within the expedition or with any
One example was the British film Scott of the Antarctic, external competitors). Sverdrup and the expedition’s driv-
an Ealing Studios production that opened to mixed reac- ing organizational force, the Swedish geographer Hans
tions in 1948. Literature scholar Gill Plain has argued that Ahlmann (1889–1974), had insisted upon an explicitly
the film’s depiction of heroic masculinity seemed uneasily international venture that would symbolize cooperation
reactionary at a time of waning British power, though it among friendly partners. One of the expedition’s partici-
remained sufficiently appealing to elite culture to warrant pants, the physicist and later Director of SPRI Gordon
a Royal Command performance.33 The film was poorly Robin (1927–2004), described both Scott and Amundsen
received in Norway. The Oslo Dagbladet’s London corre- as exemplars of courage and endurance to whom their
spondent felt it articulated a peculiarly national desire to modern counterparts could not readily be compared.37
30 34
Wordie in Henry Balfour, Mr Hampton, R.E.D. Ryder, Harry Batterbee, Herbert ‘‘Mislykt engelsk film om ‘det ærefullt mislykte’,’’ Dagbladet (Oslo), 7 December
Henniker-Heaton, and Wordie et al, ‘British Graham Land Expedition, 1934–37: 1948.
35
Discussion,’ Geographical Journal vol. 91 (5) (May 1938), p. 436. Giæver to Helmer Hanssen, 6 July 1949. SATø NP A 013 3/6 box 194, folder 10A;
31
Roberts BGLE diary, p. 128. SPRI MS 1308/3/1. and box 198, folder 10B/14.
32 36
Hoel to Roald Amundsens Minnefond, 15 October 1938. SATø NP A 013 4/2 box See the correspondence in SATø NP A 013 3/6 box 194, folder 10A; and box 198,
211, folder 84. folder 10B/14.
33 37
Gill Plain, John Mills and British Cinema: Masculinity, Identity and Nation Robin, ‘Life at Maudheim’, The Geographical Magazine vol. 24 (3) (1951), pp. 145–
(Edinburgh University Press, 2006), p. 100. 154.

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148 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4

Many observers agreed that the great deeds of the past present. That impression unraveled when, much to Fuchs’s
ought not to be compared with the activities of the present. annoyance, the expedition became cast as a race to the
But not all: the SPRI organ Polar Record noted in 1951 that Pole. The leader of the CTAE’s support party, Sir Edmund
‘the scientific strength of this expedition exceeds any to Hillary (1919–2008) – conqueror of Mount Everest – was
winter in the Antarctic since Scott’s second British Nation- expected to be waiting on the other side of the Pole. But
al Antarctic Expedition of forty years ago’ – a questionable Hillary decided to press on to the Pole himself, arriving
claim that said more about the hallowed place of Scott’s there before Fuchs and sparking po-faced denials that
last expedition within the mental geography of the Cam- there was any tension between the men, or even a hint
bridge milieu than the expedition to hand.38 of sporting rivalry in their actions. A leader in the Daily
Amundsen and Scott returned to the forefront from 1953 Telegraph reassured readers that the CTAE was part of a
when Vivian Fuchs (1908–1999), a senior member of the larger ‘scientific survey’ based on teamwork, linking it to
British government’s Falkland Islands Dependencies Sur- the wider IGY (of which it was not formally a part).42 One
vey, proposed a crossing of the Antarctic continent from the correspondent claimed that Scott’s devotion to science
Weddell to the Ross Seas via the South Pole. The Com- made his expedition, not Amundsen’s, the valid compari-
monwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) was an son.43 Meanwhile, a Norwegian company boasted to its
Elizabethan quest, ‘perhaps the last really long journey domestic public that Hillary had used their equipment in
of pure exploration that remains to be done’, in Priestley’s his tractors. The link between Norwegian technique and
words.39 Amundsen and Scott were at this time the leaders polar success thus reappeared, with Hillary identified as
of the only two parties to reach the Pole, as the British Norwegian in a sense,44 even if other commentators felt the
media incessantly noted when describing Fuchs’s plans. important connection was the national kinship between
The grand adventure was justified by science, but in a Scott and the citizens of the modern British world.45
general sense of frontier interrogation that embraced the When Fuchs had to decide whether to press ahead to his
moral imperative to know the unknown through explora- final destination by the Ross Sea despite the lateness of the
tion and sacrifice. ‘Men like Scott and Oates make man’s season (the alternative being to ignominiously catch a lift
long journey from the slime comprehensible and dignified’, on an American transport aircraft), Scott’s fate was in-
one newspaper pompously proclaimed.40 voked in Norway as a grim specter of caution.46 But Fuchs
The CTAE sailed for Antarctica in late 1955 as prepara- chose to continue, and reached his goal on March 3. Having
tions for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) were in efficiently completed a return journey from the Pole there
full swing, an event that would make the Antarctic a venue was now another obvious historical parallel – but Anders
for superpower competition like the Space Race or the Orvin of the Norwegian Polar Institute pooh-poohed any
Olympic Games. Despite grand rhetoric about cooperation comparison with Amundsen because Fuchs had used
in the name of science, the Foreign Office worried that the mechanized transport.47 While sacrifice and devotion to
scale of United States IGY plans would create ‘an interna- science were non-exclusive qualities, being first to the Pole
tional race like that between Scott and Amundsen’ in was a singular feat – and its mastermind remained a
which Britain would once again appear losers.41 Sure singular icon, at least in Norway.
enough, the United States and the Soviet Union dominated
the IGY Antarctic program, their new pre-eminence on the Conclusion: heroes for the present
global political stage recapitulated in the Antarctic. One of Although there has long been consensus around the world
the most striking symbols of this new order was the United that Scott’s methods of travel were inferior to Amundsen’s,
States scientific station on the geographical Pole itself, this was not equated with culpability for his own death or
opened in August 1957. The Americans named it ‘Amund- those of his comrades until Roland Huntford’s bluntly
sen-Scott’ – a title the base’s successor still bears today – destructive 1979 dual biography of Scott and Amundsen.48
thus appropriating an epic event from the heyday of ro- Perhaps even more damagingly, Huntford made a vice of
mantic European nationalism for a new age where Scott’s great virtue, his devotion to science, claiming the
Washington and Moscow dominated world affairs. The famous thirty-five pounds of geological specimens were not
former rivals now became united by their commonalities priceless evidence of Scott’s dedication to higher goals but a
rather than divided by their differences, for the signifi- pathetic attempt to salvage some prestige from a doomed
cance of the site they both reached rather than their quest. Huntford’s assault refocused attention on the Pole
methods of travel or devotion to science. race, where Scott undoubtedly came up short, thereby
The CTAE rested awkwardly with this new reality, setting a historical playing field where Amundsen was
especially as it derived much of its attraction from the bound to triumph. Responses to Huntford have often
notion that the glorious past could be repeated in the marginalized the race to the Pole by emphasizing the
bad luck Scott suffered (while admitting the inferiority
38
‘Foreword’, Polar Record vol. 6 (41) (January 1951), p. 3.
39 42
Priestley, quoted in ‘Dr Fuchs Has 50–50 Chance,’ Sunday Times (London), 1 ‘Reaching the Pole,’ Daily Telegraph (London), 4 January 1958.
43
December 1957. G.R. Elliston, ‘To the Pole,’ Daily Telegraph (London), 8 January 1958.
40 44
‘Antarctic Adventure,’ Evening News (London) 10 January 1955. Lawrence ‘Titus’ Nordlys (Tromsø), 9 January 1958. The advertisement appeared at the bottom left
Oates (1880–1912), who died before Scott during the return journey from the Pole, of the newspaper’s sixth page.
45
famously informed Scott that ‘I am just going outside and may be some time’ when he ‘Hillary tok Sydpols-beboerne på senden,’ Morgenbladet (Oslo), 4 January 1958.
46
recognized that his failing health would surely prevent the three surviving members of ‘Sterk norsk innsats i det geofysiske år,’ Morgenbladet (Oslo), 22 January 1958.
47
the party from returning safely. ‘Dr. Fuchs bedrift betydningsfull. Men sammenlign ham ikke med Roald Amund-
41
Brian Roberts, Foreign Office minute 29 October 1954. The National Archives sen.’ Norges Handels- og Sjøfartstidende (Oslo), 3 March 1958.
48
(Kew, United Kingdom), FO 371/108768 A 15215/19. Huntford, Scott and Amundsen (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979).

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 Feature Endeavour Vol. 35 No. 4 149

of his methods) while stressing the centrality of science to awful difficulty. Fiennes’s own Antarctic experiences led
his work. In his monumental historical survey of Antarctic him to write a polemical defense of Scott against Hunt-
science, the biologist G.E. Fogg indignantly rejected Hunt- ford’s criticisms, his own privations a source of insight
ford’s claim about the value of the geological specimens as upon Scott’s ordeal.51 Historian Matti Goksøyr makes
‘the judgment of a non-scientist bent on creating sensation the valuable point that such expeditions have a set of rules
by destroying a legend’, citing their utility in later studies akin to organized sport, noting Fiennes’s own comparison
(and even – questionably – suggesting they should have of aerial support for land expeditions with doping in ath-
played a greater role in the development of continental letics.52 The expeditions honoring the centenary of the
drift theory).49 Amundsen and Scott expeditions also adhere to cultural
The burst of anger in Fogg’s otherwise measured book is norms, derived not from the rules that permit competition
not incidental. While Shackleton and Amundsen have long between rivals, but rather from the values that Scott and
attracted admiration from Antarctic workers of all disci- Amundsen respectively embody in the present.
plinary stripes for their pragmatic resourcefulness, Scott Consider two of the more prominent ventures, each of
has become a particularly hallowed figure for modern which might safely be taken as representing an ‘official’
Antarctic scientists, particularly in the English-speaking version of Amundsen and Scott’s legacies. The first is a
world. This is due in part to his leadership of a strong four-man effort on ski from the Norwegian Polar Institute,
scientific staff on his final expedition, but also the persona including the Institute’s official historian Harald Dag Jølle,
of Scott himself. The archetype of the curious and coura- author of a number of works in Norwegian polar history.
geous scientist-explorer, concerned more with the advance- The other is the International Scott Centenary Expedition,
ment of knowledge than feats of travel, is particularly tellingly planned to reach not the Pole, but the site of
powerful in light of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty because Scott’s death. These commemorative expeditions run in
the Treaty specifies science as the dominant justification parallel rather than in competition, mirroring the domi-
for human activity in the Antarctic. A golden historical nant present-day themes in the legacies of Scott and
thread back to the Heroic Age is thus a valuable means of Amundsen. The rare counter-examples emphasize the dif-
naturalizing the present-day order: rather than being the ferences between past and present, such as Jølle’s cheerful
latest in a series of negotiated relationships between comment that while Amundsen had pressure in the form of
humans and the Antarctic, the dominance of science a race with Scott, the new expedition is driven by a need to
(and scientists) in the present becomes the end point of be in time for a party at the Pole with the Norwegian prime
a historical progression. Having a continent with scientists minister.53 The Norwegian expedition is located within a
rather than soldiers, for instance, as the leading actors is a specifically national narrative focused on the efficient con-
fine thing. But we might do well to remember that histori- quest of the Pole, Amundsen’s lack of scientific gravitas
cal legacies are made by the present rather than vice versa. eased perhaps by the fact 2011 has been celebrated in
Amundsen’s reputation has not retained the same pati- Norway as the Nansen-Amundsen year (also being 150
na of perfection. Then again, he has not needed it. His years after the former’s birth).
messy financial affairs (including a bankruptcy) and petty, The ISCE website mentions the race to the Pole almost
score-settling autobiography produced disdain during his apologetically, as an event that ‘overshadowed’ the rest of
own lifetime. But even Britons admired the level of effi- Scott’s expedition.54 By focusing on the site of Scott’s death
cient competence in his South Pole journey, a conclusion rather than the geographical point for which he strove, the
that only gained strength once others traversed segments ISCE captures the extent to which the Pole has become
of his route and testified (rather more colorfully) to its marginalized from Scott’s legacy, the ‘spirit of Scott’ per-
difficulty.50 Subsequent studies have often been critical, sisting where the goal for which he originally strove has
notably Tor Bomann-Larsen’s 2003 biography, which pro- faded from attention. Indeed, the ISCE website proudly
vided a valuable counter to Huntford’s earlier paean. The claims that that Scott’s ‘work paved the way for the modern
point remains, however, that Amundsen’s legacy has al- Antarctic as a continent for science and international co-
ways had a stable reference point – his successful Pole operation’.55 While one would expect the Scott commemo-
journey – regardless of personal flaws and questionable ration to heavily emphasize science, the words ‘environ-
conduct. Scott’s has been constructed around qualities ment’ and ‘science’ appear in descriptions of the current
such as heroism and devotion to science, and debates over Norwegian expedition too. Antarctica may not have been a
character and morality have emerged chiefly in the context continent for science in 1911, but it is now.
of their famous race. Had Amundsen not been first to the Pole, one can imagine
How important is that race to the legacies of Amundsen an asymmetrical legacy in which Scott was both the con-
and Scott today? A century later, a series of commemora- queror of the Pole and the servant of science. Would the Pole
tive expeditions are heading south. For some previous then have assumed greater significance in Scott’s legacy, the
exponents – notably the British explorer Ranulph Fiennes thirty-five pounds of rocks becoming incidental rather than
– the recreation of great Antarctic journeys has aimed to emblematic? Perhaps, but it is difficult to see Scott embrac-
validate the character of past heroes by confirming its ing aerial adventures in the same way as Amundsen. I find it

49 51
Fogg, A History of Antarctic Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Fiennes, Captain Scott (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003).
52
1992), p. 252. While the samples were indeed valuable, they were known to scholars Goksøyr, ‘Kappløp i gamle spor,’ in Norsk polarhistorie 1, p. 313.
53
already during the interwar years when drift was debated. Ingrid Næser, ‘I Amundsens spor’, Levende Historie vol. 2 (2011), p. 9.
50 54
For a nice example, see Wally Herbert, ‘In Amundsen’s Tracks on the Axel Heiberg See the expedition’s website, http://www.isce2012.co.uk/.
55
Glacier,’ Geographical Journal vol. 129 (4) (December 1963), pp. 397–410. http://www.isce2012.co.uk/expedition/the-story.

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rather easier to imagine him taking a figurehead role For all his planning and preparation, Amundsen was a
as Debenham’s generation institutionalized his legacy at mishap away from being a historical footnote.
Cambridge – though I wonder whether the money that A century on, the race that gripped much of the world
founded SPRI would have been collected without the cata- has been overshadowed by the power of the racers to
lytic tragedy of his death. Amundsen’s legacy was in a sense embody values more relevant to later generations. Once
secured by his earlier conquest of the North-West Passage. rivals on the ice, Amundsen and Scott both began their
Yet failure to beat Scott to the South Pole would surely have careers at sea. Perhaps their legacies today are better
undermined his claims to equal status in the national described by a nautical metaphor: ships passing in the
pantheon with Nansen, whose transcendent fame illumi- night.
nated Amundsen’s feats without ever being overshadowed.

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